Rangyayo
Phonology Consonants The following are phonemic transcriptions of Rangyan consonants. # /ŋ/ appears only in the syllable coda. # /s, z/ are palatalised ʑ before /i, j/ # /h/ is palatalised ç before /i, j/; and is bilabialised ɸ before /u, w/ # /ts, dz, tsʰ/ are palatalised dʑ, tɕʰ before /i, j/ # /ɾ/ is an alveolar flap ɾ in the syllable onset; and is l in the syllable coda which can only be found in foreign loanwords. Vowels Monophthongs # /i/ is pronounced /ɪ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/ # /u/ is /ʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/ Diphthongs In the Rangyan language, because semivowels /j/ and /w/ may follow consonants in initial position in a word, which no other consonant can do, and perhaps due also to yenmun orthography, which transcribes them as vowels, they are sometimes considered to be elements of diphthongs and triphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes. # /ju/ is pronounced /jʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/ # /uɪ/ is a falling diphthong uɪ after a consonant in an open syllable; and is a rising diphthong wi when it is a syllable of its own or in a closed syllable. Triphthongs Positional allophones Rangyan consonants have two principal positional allophones: initial and final. The initial form is found at the beginning of a syllable and the final form is found at the end of a syllable. All plosives t, k are unreleased t̚, k̚ at the end of a syllable. Final ɾ is a liquid l which can only be found in foreign loanwords. Phonotactics Rangyan syllable structure is maximally CgVC, where the first C'' is the initial consonant; ''g is a semivowel glide /j/ or /w/; V'' is a vowel; the second ''C is a coda. Any consonant but /ŋ/ may occur initially, whereas only /m, n, ŋ, p, t, k/ may occur finally in non-foreign words, and /s, l/ in foreign words. Below is the table of all syllable finals (gVC) in Rangyan. # pronounced wi when it is a syllable of its own or before codas /n, t̚, s, l/; and pronounced wɪ before codas /ŋ, k̚/ # pronounced uɪ after an onset in an open syllable. Additional finals /wam/, /wɛm/, /wim/, /wap/, /wɛp/, /wip/ can be found in foreign loanwords. Vowel harmony Traditionally, the Rangyan language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Rangyan, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. However, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Rangyan. In modern Rangyan, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia and interjections. There are three classes of vowels in Rangyan: positive, negative and neutral. The vowel classes loosely follow the vowel heights. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding fast, hot, dry, hard, solid, focused or aggressive, and negative vowels sounding slow, cold, wet, soft, insubstantial, diffuse or tranquil. Pitch accent Rangyan pitch accent can be presented with a two-pitch-level model. In this representation, each syllable is either high (H) or low (L) in pitch. # If the accent is on the first syllable, then the first syllable is high-pitched and the others are low: HLL... # If the accent is on a syllable other than the first, then the first syllable is low, the following syllables up to and including the accented one are high, and the rest are low: LHLL..., LHHLL..., LHHHLL... # If the word does not have an accent, the first syllable is low and the others are high: LHH... This high pitch spreads to unaccented grammatical particles that attach to the end of the word, whereas these would have a low pitch when attached to an accented word. Examples are given in the table below. The number before each pitch pattern tells you the syllable where the last high pitch is. Grammar Nouns Rangyan has no grammatical number, gender or articles. Thus, Rangyan nouns are non-inflecting. The noun iku ( ) can be translated as "dog", "dogs", "a dog", "the dog", "some dogs" and so forth, depending on context. However, as part of the extensive pair of grammatical systems that Rangyan possesses for honorification and politeness, nouns too can be modified. Nouns take politeness prefix a-'' ( ) to produce their respectful forms. A few examples are given in the following table. Rangyan does not differentiate between count and mass nouns. A small number of nouns have collectives formed by reduplication, for example, ''oro ( ) "person" and orooro ( ) "people". However, reduplication is not productive. Words in Rangyan referring to more than one of something are collectives, not plurals. Orooro, for example, means "a lot of people" or "people in general". It is never used to mean "two people". A phrase like rangya ke orooro ( ) would be taken to mean "the people of Rangya", or "the population of Rangya", not "two people from Rangya" or even "a few people from Rangya". Lacking grammatical number, the noun haya ( ) may refer to a single bird or several birds. Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word). For example, haya ju ik ( ) means seven birds. Pronouns Suffixes are added to pronouns to make them collective, for example, kigomi-te ( ) "we" and asobeda-nün ( ) "they". Reflexive Pronouns Rangyan has three reflexive pronouns jishin, jiki and osu, all meaning "self". However, there are subtle differences in usage among the three reflexive pronouns. * jishin ( ) tends to take a local antecedent and is used more often for first person antecedents; * jiki ( ) takes long-distance antecedents much more than local ones; * osu ( ) is less used than the other two and takes local and long-distance antecedents equally well. The antecedent to which it refers can be inferred by context, which is generally the subject of the sentence. Verbs Verbs are the most complex lexical category in Rangyan. Their structure when used as the predicate of a clause is prefix + verb stem + up to five suffixes, and can be illustrated with this table. This is a conjugation table for the verb yabü ( ) "eat". Honorific and modality are not included to keep the table shorter. Demonstratives Demonstratives occur in the i-'', ''ne-'', and ''ko-'' series. The ''i-'' (proximal) series refers to things closer to the speaker than the hearer, the ''ne-'' (mesial) series for things closer to the hearer, and the ''ko-'' (distal) series for things distant to both the speaker and the hearer. With ''ma-'', demonstratives turn into the corresponding interrogative form. Demonstratives limit, and therefore precede, nouns; thus ''i maro ( ) for "this stone", ne maro ( ) for "that stone", and ko maro ( ) for "that stone over there". Adjectives All Rangyan adjectives end in ''-i'', for example, ko'i ( ) "big" and hyogi ( ) "heavy". Their syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or referent of pronoun. In Rangyan, adjectives form an open class of words, that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation. A given occurrence of a Rangyan adjective can generally be classified into one of the two major kinds of uses: * Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify, for example, ko'i is an attributive adjective in ko'i haku ( ) "big cow". Since Rangyan is a head-final language, attributive adjectives always precede their nouns. * Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula to the noun or pronoun they modify, for example, ko'i is a predicate adjective in haku we ko'i rü ( ) "cow is big". Adjective order In Rangyan language, attributive adjectives usually occur in this default order, with other orders being permissible: # demonstrative # intensifier (adverb of degree) # opinion # size # age # shape # colour # proper adjective (e.g. nationality, origin, material) # noun adjunct (noun used as adjective) # head noun Example: ne ya'i nitsi ugi haya ( ) "that good small black bird" Comparative Rangyan adjectives, unlike their English counterparts, do not have a comparative form. To compare two things (NP1 and NP2), the noun phrase being compared (NP2), together with the postpositional comparative particle e'', are placed between the subject noun phrase (NP1) and the predicative adjective in a sentence ended with a copula. Example: ''ne iku we i haya e ko'i rü ( ) "That dog is bigger than this bird." Superlative Rangyan adjectives also lack a superlative form. The adverb mim ( ) "most" is placed before adjectives for superlative degree of comparison. Example: ne iku we mim ko'i rü ( ) "That dog is the biggest." Adverbs An adverb is any word that modifies verbs, adjectives, clauses, sentenses and other adverbs. Not all but many Rangyan adverbs are formed by adding ''-m'' to adjectives. For example, khutki ( ; "narrow") yields khutki'm'' ( ; "narrowly") and ya'i ( ; "good") yields ya'i'm'' ( "well"). This derviation is quite productive but there are a few adjectives from which adverbs may not be derived. Particles Particles in Rangyan are postpositional, as they immediately follow the modified component. Writing system The modern Rangyan writing system uses two main scripts: * Hanji ( ), ideographs from Chinese characters, and * Yenmun ( ), a Korean phonemic alphabet organised into syllabic blocks that make up words. To a lesser extent, modern written Rangyan also uses the Latin alphabet. Examples include abbreviations such as "CD" and "DVD". Romanised Rangyan, called romaji ( ), is frequently used by foreign students of Rangyan, who have not yet mastered the two main scripts, and by native speakers for computer input. Usage of scripts Hanji Yenmun Yenmun is a phonemic alphabet organized into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of at least two of the 24 yenmun letters (jimo), with at least one each of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. These syllabic blocks can be written horizontally from left to right as well as vertically from top to bottom in columns from right to left. Originally, the alphabet had several additional letters for pre-modern Korean, however, these letters have never been used in Rangyan. Jimo Jimo ( ) are the units that make up the yenmun alphabet. Ji means letter or character, and mo means mother, so the name suggests that the jimo are the building-blocks of the script. There are 39 jimo, of which 24 are equivalent to letters of the Latin alphabet. The other 15 jimo are clusters of two or sometimes three of these letters. Of the 24 simple jimo, 14 are consonants ( ; "child sounds") and 10 are vowels ( ; "mother sounds"). 5 of the simple consonant letters are doubled to form the five voiced consonants (see below). The 10 basic vowel jimo can be combined to form 10 more complex ones. Here is a summary: :* 14 simple consonant letters: ㄱ, ㅋ, ㅇ, ㄷ, ㅌ, ㄴ, ㅂ, ㅍ, ㅁ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅅ, ㅎ, ㄹ :* 5 double letters (voiced): ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅉ, ㅆ :* 6 simple vowel letters: ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅜ, ㅡ, ㅣ :* 4 simple iotized vowel letters (semi consonant-semi vowel): ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, ㅠ :* 10 diphthongs: ㅐ, ㅒ, ㅔ, ㅖ, ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ Four of the simple vowel jimo are derived by means of a short stroke to signify iotation (a preceding i sound): ㅑ /ja/, ㅕ /jɛ/, ㅛ /jɔ/, and ㅠ /ju/. These four are counted as part of the 24 simple jimo because the iotating stroke taken out of context does not represent /j/. In fact, there is no separate jimo for /j/. Of the simple consonants, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ are aspirated derivatives of ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ, respectively, formed by combining the unaspirated letters with an extra stroke. The doubled letters are ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅉ, ㅆ. Double jimo do not represent geminate consonants, but rather a voiced phonation. Jimo order The alphabetical order of yenmun does not mix consonants and vowels as Western alphabets do. Rather, the order is that of the Indic type, first velar consonants, then coronals, labials, sibilants, etc. However, the vowels come after the consonants rather than before them as in the Indic systems. Historical order The consonantal order of yenmun in 1446 in the document titled Funmintsengim ( ) "The Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People" was, ㄱ ㅋ ㆁ ㄷ ㅌ ㄴ ㅂ ㅍ ㅁ ㅈ ㅊ ㅅ ㆆ ㅎ ㅇ ㄹ ㅿ and the order of vowels was, ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ ㅗ ㅏ ㅜ ㅓ ㅛ ㅑ ㅠ ㅕ Modern Rangyan order In the Rangyan order, double jimo are placed immediately after their single counterparts. No distinction is made between silent and nasal ㅇ: ㄱ ㄲ ㅋ ㅇ ㄷ ㄸ ㅌ ㄴ ㅂ ㅃ ㅍ ㅁ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅅ ㅆ ㅎ ㄹ ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅣ The modern monophthongal vowels come first, with the derived forms interspersed according to their form: first added i, then iotized, then iotized with added i. Diphthongs beginning with w are ordered according to their spelling, as ㅏ or ㅓ plus a second vowel, not as separate digraphs. The order of the final jimo is, (null) ㄱ ㅇ ㄷ ㄴ ㅂ ㅁ ㅅ ㄹ "Null" stands for no final jimo, and the final jimo ㅅ and ㄹ can only be found in foreign loanwords. Direction of writing Written language reforms Romanisation There are a number of methods of rendering Rangyan in Roman letters. The Mackenzie method of romanisation, designed for English speakers, is a de facto standard widely used inside and outside Rangya. Codas ''-s'' and ''-l'' can only be found in foreign loanwords. Category:Languages Category:Conlangs